Budget

On Thursday, June 14, 2018, the House of Representative’s Subcommittee on Space met to discuss the rising cost and schedule overruns at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). These overruns were attributed to what NASA Inspector General Paul Martin described as a “too big to fail” optimism at the agency, lack of consequences for failing to complete programs on time, and an ignorance of the technical complexity of projects.

As we finish our Halloween candy and start preparing for Thanksgiving, each of the fifty states has now passed its required budget. As forty-nine of the fifty states require a balanced budget, which means the politicians can’t always resort to gimmicks and kick the can down the road like they do in Washington, D.C., the process of budgeting in state capitals takes considerable time and careful deliberation. This year, for Connecticut and Pennsylvania, passage occurred way behind schedule.

Faced with a budget deficit of $3.5 billion over the next two years, and three months overdue on a budget for fiscal years 2018 and 2019, Connecticut lawmakers face a difficult situation and must make tough choices. In 2011 and 2015, the legislature tried to solve the state’s fiscal woes by passing big tax increases. That’s why a vote in the wee hours of Saturday, September 16 is so impor

On September 28, 2016, the U.S. Senate and, a few hours later, the House of Representatives passed a resolution that would continue the funding of the government through December 9, 2016 – narrowly missing the last day of this fiscal year, which ends on the September 30th. Since Congress failed to pass the 12 individual appropriations bills (or a budget) before the beginning of the new fiscal year, the continuing resolution (C.R.) was necessary to prevent another government shutdown.

In a July 2016 report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) could improve its budget data in its justifications to Congress. The report found that the IRS, while it has taken steps to more effectively manage its budget, has not correlated its priorities to relevant appropriations accounts. In its fiscal year 2017 justification, the IRS linked requests to priorities for increased funding, but failed to provide data on how much had been previously spent on each priority; as a result, t

On June 9, 2016, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on the Budget held a hearing titled, “The Need to Control Automatic Spending and Unauthorized Programs.” The witnesses included: the Honorable David Walker, former Comptroller General to the United States; Stuart Butler, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute; and Lily Batchelder, a professor of public policy at the New York University School of Law.

On January 20, 2016, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) weighed in on a request for comments from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on the requirements that should be included in its guidance to federal departments and agencies for improving the management and purchasing of software assets.